Dear Friends & Neighbours, Having helped in Media Studies Classes at Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham for many years I always wait with anticipation for the Christmas adverts to arrive. The Christmas Adverts were particularly good for the students to dissect and analyse. The John Lewis advert was always a firm favourite; they were of course advertising their products… but more and more they became about advertising a life-style and a way of being.

And this year’s John Lewis Christmas Advert is in the same vein.

If you’ve not seen it yet.. It shows a man probably mid-forties desperately trying to learn to skateboard…he’s not very good and falls off a number of times. It also shows the same man and his wife preparing for Christmas… decorating the Christmas Tree and wrapping presents. The man finally manages to stay on the skateboard. We are left questioning the motive behind his perseverance until the final scene, which shows a social worker arriving at his door with a young teenage girl, who has arrived at her new foster home carrying her skateboard. John Lewis has found a great way of not only promoting their Christmas products but also raising awareness of the 108,000 children in the UK that are in the Care System.

In the Churches calendar we are now in the season of Advent… the season of preparation. I love Advent … I love the whole build up to Christmas… decorating the house, putting up twinkly lights, making mince pies and buying the food and the presents (although this year like most folk we’re going to have to be careful how much we spend) But even when we’ve had very little money, I’ve still loved the season of getting everything ready.

Advent is about all those preparations… but it’s about so much more.

This couple in the advert were preparing not only for Christmas but they were also preparing themselves and their home for a guest… a guest who would become part of their family… a guest that made Christmas even more special for them.

This Advent as we prepare for Christmas… (whatever that might look like for you) I’d love to invite you to think about what it is that you’re preparing for? The Christian concept of Advent is about preparing our hearts and our homes for Jesus… to celebrate the greatest gift of all. The gift of Jesus the Son of God born for us all that first Christmas Day… born that we might know Hope and Peace… born that we might know what it is to be loved by God.

Christmas with all its decorations can be very special, but a Christmas where we welcome Jesus into our hears and homes and experience His presence and His love is just wonderful. And the good news is He doesn’t leave as the Christmas tree and decorations come down… but continues to live with us into the New Year and far beyond.

Have a very Happy Advent and a Wonderful Christmas and a Blessed New

Year. God Bless, Rev Cathy